The News
Even after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. exited the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump, one of Kennedy’s bigger fans in Congress isn’t quite sold.
Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentuckian who ran against Trump in 2016’s GOP primary and diverged from Trump on some major policy fronts during the four years that followed, said on Monday that he’s not ready to throw himself fully behind the former president.
Sure, Paul said, “there’s no question” that Trump is better than Vice President Kamala Harris and he’s generally supportive – but he still has hesitation about a full endorsement.
“My enthusiasm has flagged a little,” Paul said of Trump. “One, because I think the debt will be about the same under Biden that it was under Trump.”
Paul’s second concern, befitting his record as a frequent critic of American military intervention abroad, was that “if there’s a Trump victory, that there’s not, like, a John Bolton in the administration, who’s for eternal war.”
He added that “I don’t think Trump” shares the foreign policy inclinations of Bolton, a former Trump national security adviser and staunch hawk. “But Bolton was a bad pick.”
Paul said he’s offered to sit down with Trump’s team to discuss his endorsement and that he’s “persuadable, if they want to talk.” His Trump holdout status, at a time when the former president would benefit from maximum party unity, is vintage Paul; the senator’s one-man contrarian displays are now legendary.
And it’s not without consequence: Paul’s libertarian-leaning stances count legions of Internet fans, particularly among the younger men whose votes Trump needs.
Asked for comment on Paul’s ambivalence, Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes said “President Trump has unified the GOP like never before and is also attracting a broad coalition of support with independents and disaffected Democrats. Americans know that he is the candidate to make our nation prosperous again and restore a peace through strength doctrine that puts America first.”
Burgess’s view
The warm Paul-Trump relationship during the former president’s first term was something of a surprise, given their rivalries early in the 2016 campaign. Even as Paul made relatively frequent breaks with Trump on policy issues, though, he also stuck by his party’s standard-bearer when it counted – during both impeachments, in particular.
It’s clear now that Paul would like to feel a little more love on the topics he cares about. He dislikes government surveillance and wants absolutely nothing to do with foreign entanglements. So he’s still miffed about the way his party handled a warrantless government surveillance vote this year which featured House GOP leaders helping squash a bid to require a warrant for certain queries of Americans’ data.
That House vote failed narrowly as hawks in both parties and national security officials argued it was unworkable, while libertarians and progressives argued for the change as critical to protecting civil liberties.
“I fought for [warrantless surveillance] reform before there was a Donald Trump. You know, libertarians have always been opposed to [warrantless surveillance] abuse of Americans,” Paul said on Monday. “The deciding vote against reform was Mike Johnson, the speaker. And Trump sort of embraces him … he never seems to have any restraint – until he decides to have restraint with criticizing Johnson over what was a terrible vote.”
Still, there’s still plenty of time for Paul to get behind Trump before Election Day and harmonize with Kennedy Jr. And Paul isn’t closing the door: “We’ve offered to have a discussion, and we haven’t really gone beyond that.”
Shelby Talcott contributed to this report.